Most of the photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs, 20 to 200 megabytes in size) from the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) Many were digitized by LOC contractors using a Sinar studio back. They are adjusted by your webmaster for contrast and color in Photoshop before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here.
Vintage photos of:

Washington, D.C., circa 1938. "Greyhound bus." Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. View full size. Compare and contrast with this Greyhound.

Washington, D.C., circa 1921. "People's Drug Store, 18th & Columbia Road. Soda fountain." An interior view of the store (now a McDonald's) seen earlier here. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.

Washington, D.C., circa 1915. "Weller's drug store, Eighth & I streets S.E." National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.

June 1938. Outskirts of El Paso, Texas. "Young Negro wife cooking breakfast. 'Do you suppose I'd be out on the highway cooking my steak if I had it good at home?' Occupations: hotel maid, cook, laundress." Medium-format nitrate negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

November 1938. "Farm woman beside her barn door. Tulare County, California. No more horseshoes!" Medium-format nitrate negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.

Washington, D.C., circa 1918. "Pension Office interior." This former repository of Civil War veterans' pension records is now the National Building Museum. National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.

March 1920. "E.J. Quinn Motor Car Co." The Westcott automobile showroom on 14th Street in Washington, D.C. National Photo glass negative. View full size.